Process

Our process is simple. Have an idea? Share it, plan it, and make it happen.

Teams vary from 2 to 20, schedules from 2 days to 2 years, and outcomes from utter failure to legitimate success.

Best way to do a code review — from the bar stools

The Durham team focuses during Pointless weekend 2011

The Durham team keeps going, either until the power goes out or the tap runs out

Kevin channels his inner bookie to get in the Baby Bookie spirit

Laura leads a whiteboarding session for Baby Bookie

The earliest of sketches for Lunnnch, now known as Shorter Order

KV, a pointless visionary

The birth of a pointless idea

FAQ

Who is Pointless Corp.?

The fine upstanding people of Viget. Viget’s CEO, known as @barn on Twitter and around the office, could be considered the Pointless CEO. For individual Pointless projects, someone at Viget is effectively the product manager / project champion.

Why “Pointless”?

As Barn explained in this 2009 blog post, point in every direction is the same as no point at all. Through Pointless, we’re open to any idea, untethered by the inherent limitations of client work. We never forget, though, that while these projects are fun and useful, they aren’t the point. Pointless isn’t a real corporation, it’s a concept within Viget -- a very real company that must stay focused on our real, important clients.

What’s the point of Pointless?

To scratch our itches. To experiment, fail, learn, and grow. To make things. To have fun. To empathize with our clients, end users, and each other. To try different roles, new technologies, unusual processes, and get better at what we do.

What’s the history of Pointless?

We founded Viget in 1999 to build web products for startup clients. We always tinkered with our own ideas, mostly sharing them via our open source efforts. In 2008 we started formalizing the concept of an innovation lab and created our beloved bear logo. In 2009, we announced Pointless to the world and began launching utilities like SpeakerRate and stunts like Tweets of Fury. In 2011 we had the first of our occasional Pointless Weekends where projects go from idea to launch in 48 hours. On Halloween in 2013, Doug (designer of our logo) dressed up as the Pointless Bear. We continue to dream up and launch new Pointless Projects as inspiration and time allow.

Why not “Viget Labs”? Adding “Labs” is what most shops call their sandbox.

Viget’s legal name is “Viget Labs, LLC” because we always wanted to be an innovation company. Founded in 1999, we were “labs” before labs was cool. So, when we started more formally building our own stuff, we wanted an entirely separate name to house these projects.